Yesterday was post 1500. Pretty neat.

Last night I could not figure out why I was alert until almost midnight but I was. Then I zoned out for the night.

Finally back on schedule which is good. I have things to do today. There's some weeding to take care of and maybe mow the lawn. 

Yesterday I had a friend of mine tell me about meeting with another friend and having the relationship sour because the friend grew nasty in old age.  I'm getting old, too but last evening I took some time out to watch a couple of kids wrestle and I coached them a bit. It is part of the duty of being an old man and it's kind of fun. I tried to teach the kids balance and leverage. 

In other news, Denmark QSL'd me finally and that's another one off of the list. The date of contact was Sept, 2012. Why things take so long is beyond me as the postmark on the envelope was less than a week ago. Nine times out of ten I send my QSLs out as soon as I get them. If I open a card and it asks me to return the QSL I simply pick a card up, fill it out, stuff it in an envelope and off it goes the next morning.

I have a number of Arab countries logged but only Saudi had confirmed me and his was a pretty quick turnaround. His manager is a Spaniard that seems to be on his toes.

The Toyota has disappointed me as the verdict is the A/C pump is shot which sort of shocks me. Toyota generally doesn't make junk. It is very possible that I simply didn't use it enough as I am an open window kind of guy. The prices to fix it range between a grand and two grand, depending on if I use the dealer or a local mechanic. The local mechanic is actually a mechanic as opposed to a parts installer/thief. He actually knows how to fix things.

I am NOT going to fix the damned thing because it makes no sense to do so at that price. Air conditioning is something I wound up getting stuck with in the first place as I had to buy at a lousy time.

Old Jug ears had just rammed the cash for clunkers program through and there wasn't a 4 cylinder base model to be had anywhere. I located one that wasn't too loaded in West Virginia and bought it over the phone.

I generally keep things simple because if a vehicle doesn't have something the something it doesn't have won't break.

Well, I got air conditioning and it broke. It's going to stay broke and I am seriously considering pulling the whole damned thing out, pump, condenser, everything.

That damned cash for clunkers did the poor quite a disservice when you think about it, not that I spend a whole lot of time worrying about the poor. The program made an awful lot of inexpensive used vehicles disappear off of the market. 

It also drove the price of 4 cylinder vehicles through the roof. I wound up paying damned near MSRP for the rig which in reality wasn't all that awfully bad.  

In '00 I bought my first new vehicle. This '09 is my second. Before the price of used jumped so high as to make buying new worthwhile I used to buy two years old - three model years, actually and pay about half of the new price and run them into the dirt.

I'd shop for the simplest rig I could find as fewer parts mean fewer repairs.

I had a chat with a guy that had recently bought a Jeep and had refused delivery because it had extras he simply did not want. He was a kindred soul because he gave a very Piccolo-esque argument with the sales guy.

He said they wouldn't charge him for the power windows and he shot back that the whore he had picked up four months earlier didn't charge him extra for the dose of clap he wound up with and he damned sure didn't want that.

I see his point simply because he pulls the doors off of the Jeep often in the warmer months and to do that with power windows means unplugging a plug which soon wears out and leaves him unable to open his windows.

Years ago when I was driving beaters I fixed a broken power window with a brick and a piece of tarp.

To me power windows are a joke anyway as I can lower them faster with a hand crank and I have never gotten a hernia or other injury while doing so. In fact, my mother in law was 90 and opened them more than once without a second thought. Her car had them and she didn't think it was such a big deal and wasn't worth the money.

I think I'll write Toyota and see what it would cost to simply yank the A/C system. If I am tactfully pissed off they might give me a pretty good deal. We'll see.









To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html